CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
James 1:26. Seem to be.—Imagine himself to be religious; a difficult term, because its meanings have been subject to change. “The Greek adjective is one which expresses the outward, ritual side of religion, answering to ‘godliness’ as the inward.” Seem to be a professor, a worshipper. Bridleth not.—Does not restrain, and wisely rule and direct. It is singular to find this chosen as a test of sincerity in religious profession. But compare Matthew 12:37. “If a man think himself a true worshipper because he conforms to outward services, while he lets his tongue loose in untruth or unkindness, or other unseemliness, he deceives himself” (Bishop Moberly).
James 1:27. Pure religion.—Better, “Pure worship”; “the outward aspect of the devout life.” Undefiled.—Genuine, sincere. See the scrupulous care of the Pharisee to avoid anything that caused ceremonial defilement (John 18:28). Visit.—The Greek word implies more than “go and see”; it means “look after,” “care for.” Compare the teaching of our Lord in Matthew 15:20; Mark 7:5-8.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 1:26-27
Practical Religion.—The word “religion” is used only by St. James. But St. Paul speaks of “the Jews’ religion”; and we are accustomed to speak of a man’s “religion.” Evidently St. James means religion on its practical side—our religion, not as it is an unseen inner life of thought and feeling, but as it finds expression in conduct and relations, and other people can see it. We may say that he means the religion of the religious—the converted. He is not attempting to describe what the Christian religion as a whole is and demands; he is resisting the tendency of the times to make a sentimental faith everything. St. James is often misunderstood because we separate James 1:27 from its connection. In James 1:26 the case is presented of the man who makes a show of religion. There is such a thing as an ordering of conduct merely to produce a good impression. In such a case there is no personal discipline of which the ordered conduct is the genuine expression. And the man is a self-deceiver. His outward profession and show of religion are of no moral value to him, or indeed to any one else. Then in James 1:27 we are told what sincere religion is, as a contrast to this. It also is ordered conduct; but not merely ordered conduct. It also is careful and elaborate worship; but it is not merely elaborate worship. It is self-discipline, and what comes out of that. It is service of others, and the Christly sphere which that spirit of service can always find. These things are not the whole of religion; they only represent the practical side of religion. St. James does not intend to give any definition. He assumes the fact as fully recognised, and not needing fresh statement, that religion has its devotional side. St. James deals with the Christian in the world, and taking his place and part in the world. He treats of the Christian’s proper relations to the sins and sorrows of the world. And this is what he says—The Christian must come helpfully near to the sorrows, but take care to keep clear of the sins.
I. The practical religion with which a man may satisfy himself.—This is not a proper test of religion, but it is the test which men persist in putting.
1. Some try a practical religion of austerities. Dr. Pusey wrote to a friend to send him a “discipline”—that is, a self-scourging whip with five thongs and five knots. Henry Martyn sought to humble himself by walking about with pebbles in his shoes. It is a mistake to deal with the body, the agency for expressing, instead of with the agent that expresses.
2. Some try a practical religion of ritual. Distinguish worship, as natural expression for the soul, from ritual as man-made moulds into which to force the expression. Ritual commands no Divine authority, and can have no inspiration in it. Its centre is man himself. Its genius is good works, done for the sake of doing them.
3. Some try a religion of pietism that is not often practical. They are interested in excited feelings. They think they serve when they only feel; or only put themselves in the way of getting excited feelings. But how self-centred emotional religion is! How enslaving also it is! Hot-house religion; and the plants drawn up long and thin, with no robustness in them. It is very doubtful whether a pietistic religion ever satisfies the man himself for long. There is perhaps nothing that tires and sickens a man so soon.
II. The practical religion with which the Father-God is well pleased.—“Pure religion and undefiled.” Genuine, sincere religion, with no secret self-pleasing at the heart of it. Pure; clear through; that does not fear to be judged under the sunlight. Undefiled, unstained with self-seeking. It includes:
1. Kindly interest in, and care for, others. What you do in society. Religion must get beyond the circle of personal interests. Specific cases of possible service as given by St. James are types of all kinds of call to brotherly service. The condition of widows and orphans in Eastern countries is inexpressibly sad. If we would see the model religion in its practical aspect, we can find it in the human life of the Lord Jesus. With Him worship and self-culture were always kept in their proper place and relations. The days were spent in going about doing good. Earnest Christians are often troubled because their busy lives give them such little opportunity for soul-culture; but that life of service is the very best soul-culture, a culture that advances all the more healthily because it is not watched. Religion is “life for others.”
2. Wise dealing with self. What you are in society. It is singular that visiting the needy should be put first, and self-keeping second. We should have reversed the order. But there is a reason for the order St. James prefers. It is in ministering to the spotted that we best keep ourselves from the spots. Christ touched the leper with a healing touch; therefore He contracted no leprosy. Nurses and doctors are remarkably safe from contagion. Activity against evil is the best preservative from evil, as is illustrated in the case of the slum sisters of the Salvation Army. Be ministering angels, and you will be sure to keep pure as the angels. Here, too, in Christ may be seen the model religion. Activity of service kept him from taking stains. The fungus flourishes in the sopped and decayed branches of the tree. Idle folk are always bodily or morally diseased folk, and they ought to be. Stain comes on things that are laid by. Church grumblers are never Church workers. Keep unspotted by keeping on serving.
III. The two things, service of others and self-keeping, fit together, and make up together the practical religion which the Father-God approves.—They seem to be two distinct departments; they really are one. Religion on its practical side is doing something for somebody, and that proves to be the secret of keeping ourselves clean. We must keep clean as nurses must who tend fevered patients. Experience tells that unlovely things which get stored in the mind have a way of coming up to view, depressing and degrading us, when we have no special interests occupying thought and heart. When the soul is full of interests there is no chance whatever for the evil; it is, most happily, crowded out. Religion then is just this—when seen on its practical side—keeping ourselves free from contamination by finding spheres of Christly service outside ourselves.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
James 1:26. Men’s Inconsistencies.—Men in the same period of their lives, in the same day, sometimes in the very same action, are utterly inconsistent and irreconcilable with themselves. Look at a man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind; follow him into his own house, maybe you see a tyrant, morose and savage to all whose happiness depends upon his kindness. A third in his general behaviour is found to be generous, disinterested, humane, and friendly; hear but the sad story of the friendless orphans too credulously trusting all their little substance into his hands, and he shall appear more sordid, more pitiless, and unjust, than the injured themselves have bitterness to paint him. Another shall be charitable to the poor, uncharitable in his censures and opinions of all the rest of the world besides; temperate in his appetites, intemperate in his tongue; shall have too much conscience and religion to cheat the man who trusts him, and, perhaps, as far as the business of debtor and creditor extends, shall be just and scrupulous to the utmost mite; yet, in matters of full as great concern, where he is to have the handling of the party’s reputation and good name—the dearest, the tenderest property the man has—he will do him irreparable damage, and rob him there without measure or pity. And this seems to be that particular piece of inconsistency and contradiction which the text is levelled at, in which the words seem so pointed as if St. James had known more flagrant instances of this kind of delusion than what had fallen under the observation of any of the rest of the apostles.—Laurence Sterne.
Detraction of Others.—They who are free from the grosser sins, and even bear the outward show of sanctity, will often exalt themselves by detracting others under the pretence of zeal, whilst their real motive is love of evil-speaking.—Calvin.
Vain Religion.—
1. In a vain religion there is much of show, and affecting to seem religious in the eyes of others.
2. There is much censuring, reviling, and detracting of others.
3. A man, in a vain religion, deceives his own heart.
Evil-speaking.—Of the many duties owing both to God and our neighbour, there are scarce any men so bad as not to acquit themselves of some; and few so good, I fear, as to practise all. Every man seems willing to compound the matter, and adopt so much of the system as will least interfere with his principle and ruling passion. Very possibly St. James had grievously suffered, through being cruelly reviled and evil spoken of. All his labours in the gospel, his unaffected and perpetual solicitude for the preservation of his flock, his watchings and fastings, his poverty, his natural simplicity and innocence of life—all perhaps were not enough to defend him from this unruly weapon, so full of deadly poison; and what, in all likelihood, might move his sorrow and indignation more, some who seemed the most devout and zealous of all his converts were the most merciless and uncharitable in that respect, having a form of godliness, but full of bitter envyings and strife. With such he expostulates in the third chapter. In our text St. James seems to have set the two characters of a saint and a slanderer at such variance that one would have thought they could never have had the heart to have met together again. But there are no alliances too strange for this world. There is nothing so bad which will not admit of something to be said in its defence. Are not the inconveniences and ill-effects which the world feels from the licentiousness of this practice, of slandering and evil-speaking, sufficiently counterbalanced by the real influence it has upon men’s lives and conduct? If there was no evil-speaking in the world, thousands would be encouraged to do ill, and would rush into many indecorums, like a horse into a battle, were they sure to escape the tongues of men. If we take a general view of the world, we shall find that a great deal of virtue, at least of the outward appearance of it, arises from the terror of what the world will say, and the liberty it will take upon the occasions we shall give. Numbers of people are every day taking more pains to be well spoken of than what would actually enable them to live so as to deserve it.—Laurence Sterne.
The Sin of Unguarded Speech.—“Bridleth not”; so as to have it in full control, and restrain all its impetuosities, and guide it in right and wise and worthy directions. A classification of Christian sins would have to include some unsuspected ones, and some imperfectly considered ones. Unguarded speech is too often regarded as a weakness or frailty; it is not usually estimated to bear all the characteristics of a sin. It is a sin to which persons of a certain particular disposition are especially exposed; but every Christian is in peril of being taken at unawares, and saying what had much better have been left unsaid. By “unguarded speech” we may mean:
1. The worthless and often mischievous utterances of a talkative disposition.
2. Speech before thought, of which thought disapproves.
3. Speech in too high a tone of voice. A man so speaking is like a runaway horse.
4. Speech of cherished wrong feeling, which is sure to make our words unkind or unjust.
5. Speech forgetful of Christian principles and the Christian spirit. How may speech be wisely guarded (bridled)?
1. Form the habit of speaking seldom, and only after thought.
2. Accustom yourself to learn by reviewing the effects of speech. 3. Cultivate a quiet tone of voice.
4. Remember what is due to others.
5. Avoid speaking under excitement.
6. Season speech with the salt of Christian wisdom and charity.
Scripture References to the Tongue and Speech.— Psalms 17:3; Psalms 34:1; Psalms 35:28; Psalms 39:1; Psalms 51:14; Psalms 52:2; Psalms 57:4; Psalms 64:3; Psalms 71:24; Psalms 120:3; Psalms 140:3; Psalms 141:3; Proverbs 6:17; Proverbs 10:20; Proverbs 12:18; Proverbs 18:21; Proverbs 21:23; Matthew 12:34; 1 Timothy 3:8; and others.
James 1:27. An Evidence of the Value of Christianity.—There are many religions in the world. Each makes a great claim in its particular district. Which may we say is the best of the world’s religions? Which of them can we fully satisfy ourselves with. It is easy to say that we prefer Christianity. But then we were born into it. And the devotees of other religions prefer theirs for precisely the same reason. We ought to have some better ground than this for our decision, that Christianity stands altogether first among the world-religions. How shall we proceed to judge the worth of the different religions?
1. Compare their sacred books. Take the Persian Zend-Avesta, the books of Confucius, the Shastras of India, the Koran of Mahomet, and the Bible of Jews and Christians; and there is no test, literary, moral, artistic, or religious, that does not give the first place to the Christian Bible.
2. Consider the antiquity of the religions. Reformed Parseeism belongs to the time of Daniel; Confucius dates 551 B.C., and Mahomet 570 A.D.; legends give early dates to the Hindoo and Egyptian: but the primary principles which have unfolded into Judaism and Christianity belong to the very origin of man as a moral and responsible being.
3. Take the relative numbers of the adherents of the religions; and then Christianity must take a low place, for the great human religions outnumber its adherents by millions, though Christianity has associated itself with the most advanced and civilised races.
4. Or estimate the religions by the elaborateness of their ceremonial; then Christianity, in its most ritualistic forms, can offer no rivalry to Hindooism. If these were sufficient bases of judgment, it would have to be admitted that Christianity does not offer unquestionable advantages. The text suggests a better term of judgment—the only safe one. Pure religion is practical. The test question, by which every religion should submit to be tried, is this—Does it practically work out into purity and charity? That test is fully in harmony with the spirit of our age. Since Bacon’s day (1561) observation and experience have taken the place of speculation and theory. Now we ask for verification by experiment. The new method was at first applied in natural science; it is now applied in social, moral, and religious science. We have no reason to fear the application of the new method to Christianity. Let men judge it by its fruits. Appeal may be made without hesitation—
1. To the experience of the world. The history of the race tells of no such help towards righteousness and charity as Christianity and its antecedent, Judaism, have given. The world has never reached without it such high ideals of righteousness and charity as Christianity has helped man to reach. Even the refined and intellectual Greeks exposed deformed infants on Mount Taygetus.
2. To the experience of the nation. Wherever there has been a fine edge on the national conscience, and a stern loyalty to principle, and a pathetic sympathy with suffering, there we find the culturing of Christianity.
3. To the experience of the family. Which owes its existence and its preservation almost entirely to Christianity. It may be most positively affirmed that the highest ideal of family life has never been attained anywhere except under the inspiration of Christianity.
4. To the experience of the individual. Multiplied personal testimony can be given that Christianity is, consciously, an inspiration to righteousness and charity. If men will not listen to us when we argue that Christianity is true doctrinally, they cannot fail to listen when we show that it is, and has been, the living force in humanity, ever working towards righteousness and charity. It has been urged as an objection to Christianity, that some of the world’s worst tyrannies have been supported by its name. It is easy to recall crusades, religious wars, persecutions, dragonnades, and inquisitions. But the reply has been effectively made over and over again—These things are not Christianity, but bigots or bad men using Christianity for their ends. They are not the expression of Christianity; they are caricatures. They are the outcome of a temporal Christianity worked in the interest of hierarchies; they are not kin with the spiritual Christianity of its Founder. They often have followed upon man’s attempts to blend together religion and politics, or rather to make religion serve political ends. Mohammedanism consecrates the sword and the battle. Christianity says, “Put up thy sword into his place.” What a testimony to the value of Christianity England makes on her Hospital Sundays! Why, for sustaining her national charities, does our nation appeal so directly to her professing Christians? Why does not the appeal go to the clubs, the theatre-goers, the attendants on places of amusement, the visitors at public libraries, the great companies, the business men, or the excursionists? Why is the appeal made to those who distinctly bear the Christian name? The fact is that everybody knows, even the scoffer knows, that Christianity ought to, and actually does, work out into purity and charity. That is its evidence. That makes it the unquestionable first of religions.
Uniting Christian Doing with Christian Being.—And how high a contempt and provocation is it of the great God, so totally to pervert the whole design of that revelation He hath made to us, to know the great things contained therein only for knowing sake, which He hath made that we might live by them! And oh! what holy and pleasant lives should we lead in this world if the temper and complexion of our souls did answer and correspond to the things we know! The design of preaching has been greatly mistaken, when it has been thought it must still acquaint them who live under it with some new thing. Its much greater and more important design is, the impressing of known things (but too little considered) upon the hearts of hearers, that they may be delivered up into the mould and form of the doctrine taught them, and may so learn Christ as more and more to be renewed in the spirit of their minds, and put off the old man, and put on the new. The digesting our food is what God now eminently calls for.—John Howe.
The Adornment of Religion.—Our religion is not adorned with ceremonies, but with purity and charity.—Manton.
Pure and Undefiled Religion.—Errors of the most fatal kind were early found in the Christian Church. Even in the apostle’s days a mere form and profession of religion was deemed sufficient. The value of good works was depreciated and the necessity of performing them denied. Against such errors the apostle James lifted up his voice like a trumpet. The pure religion which God alone acknowledges leads to the most self-denying exercises of love, and to a freedom from all the world’s corruptions.
I. His description of true religion.—He takes a practical view. He speaks not of principles, although he believes in the necessity of faith; but it must be a living and operative faith only, which will save the soul. He does not advert to the exercise of our affections towards God, but only to our actions towards men.
II. Here we see how religion will influence us in reference to—
1. The world at large. It is not required of us to renounce the world entirely, to abandon society altogether; but, from its corruptions, pleasures, riches, and honours to keep ourselves free even as Jesus did. We are not to be conformed to its sentiments and habits, nor court nor desire its friendship.
2. That part of it which is destitute and afflicted. Love is the life and soul of religion; and as it will extend to all in general, so will it manifest itself particularly towards those who are afflicted. Visiting the afflicted is an office which the true Christian will delight to execute. Love and charity are enjoined by Christ. Men will applaud this religion; but consider—
III. The use we are to make of it.—
1. As a criterion whereby to judge of our state. “Victory over the world” is one of those marks which are universally found in the Lord’s people, and in no other. A delight in all the offices of love to men for Christ’s sake distinguishes Christians from all other persons. Here is the touchstone.
2. As a directory whereby to regulate our conduct. “Come out from the world, and be separate.” “Bear ye one another’s burdens.” Not to the peculiarities of a sect are we urged, but to “pure and undefiled religion.” This command is equally obligatory on all. The various modes of our obedience will be judged of by God Himself, who alone knows what our respective states and circumstances require. See the compassionate visitor opening the sources of consolation which the gospel affords, till the unhappy sufferers are brought to kiss the rod that smites them; see him administering present relief, and devising means for the future support of the family; how is he received as an angel from heaven! How the widow’s heart rejoices! “Go and do thou likewise.” “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”—Charles Simeon, M.A.
Religion a Social Concern.—By religion we understand the service which is due to the supreme Being, and this service must of course correspond to His nature; so that our views of religion will be true or false in proportion as we understand or mistake His Divine character. Religion, corresponding to His nature, consists chiefly of two parts:
(1) cherishing those sentiments of love and gratitude which are due to infinite goodness; and
(2) actively promoting the purposes of this goodness—that is, promoting our own and others’ present and future welfare. St. James only describes the methods of its manifestation. They consist in doing good to others, and in doing good to ourselves. We infer that religion is a social principle, intimately united with social duty, belonging to us as social beings.
1. It is founded in our social nature, and springs from our social relations.
2. Religion is a social concern, for it is a subject on which men have a strong tendency to feel and act together, and thus it is a strong bond of union.
3. Religion is a social and public as well as a private concern, because the common relation of God to all men is not merely a ground of sympathy and attachment, but makes it a duty to offer Him public, and the most public, acknowledgments.
4. Religion is a social concern, for it operates powerfully on society, contributing in various ways to its stability and prosperity. Few men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, the extent of the support given by religion to every virtue.
1. It is a right and duty in men to influence one another on the subject of religion.
2. If individuals are authorised and bound to promote religion, then the same right and obligation appertain to the community. A community is bound to incorporate religion into its public institutions, and to secure, if possible, to all its citizens the benefits of Christian worship and instruction.—W. E. Channing, D.D.
Kindness and Character the True Worship of the Father.—A definition is that which traces the boundary of a thing, so as to separate it from all other things. A definition must include the thing—the whole thing, and nothing but the thing defined. If this verse is to be regarded as a definition of religion, then it is both defective and misleading. Defective, because it does not include the whole of religion—it shuts out the whole spiritual life of man. Misleading, for it includes things which, though invariably accompanying religion, are not peculiar to religion. Kindness and purity of life are not plants that bloom only on religious soil. But the verse is not a definition. With us the word “religion” means “godliness,” the grand sum-total of duties and relations to God and man. To the translators of the Bible it meant the outward form of piety, the external service of God. St. James presupposes conversion, presupposes all that Christ and Paul say of the inner spiritual life. The matter discussed in the text is—How shall the Divine life in the soul show itself? What shall its ritual be—its worship? It will not dispense with old forms of worship; but it will not content itself with these. The true Christian ritual is kindness and character. Christianity has love to God for its substance, and morality for its ritual. St. James says here that the religious man worships God truly every time he does a kindness to men, and that his unspotted character, like the holy fire that burnt unceasingly, is itself a perpetual pure and undefiled act of the truest worship. We need to have our ideas of religious service enlarged.
I. Some have thought that God was pleased with bloodshed and pain; and therefore they have offered up their prisoners of war, and even their own children, to the gods.
II. Others have thought that He would be pleased if men were very cruel to their own bodies.
III. Others insist that God is pleased with gorgeous ceremony.
IV. Yet others think to please Him with pietism.—Sentiment, emotion, and all other things that we present in public worship must be translated into some practical form—incarnated in some act, and “go about doing good.” Then is God truly served, and helped, and pleased. Kindness and character: God loves these, and as His will more and more permeates humanity, ceremony, persecution, and sectarianism will die, and love to God, with earth for its temple, the homes of men for its shrines, words of kindness for its psalmody, deeds of kindness for its offering, a pure heart for its holy of holies, the smile of God and the redemption of the world for its reward, will take their place.—J. Morgan Gibbon.
Religion in the Details of Life.—The difficulty of religion is the taking up of the cross daily, rather than the taking it up on some set occasion, and under extraordinary circumstances—the serving God in little things, the carrying of religious principles into all the minutiæ of life, the discipline of our tempers, the regulation of our speech, the momentary sacrifices, the secret and unobserved self-denials. Who that knows anything of the difficulty of piety does not know that there is greater danger of his failing in these than in trials of apparently far greater cost and sterner endurance? It is not comparatively hard to put the armour on when the trumpet sounds, but it is to keep the armour on when there is no alarm of battle. The warfare with our spiritual enemies is not a series of pitched battles, with intervals of resting and recruiting; it is rather daily, hourly, momentary fighting. This is the “driving out little by little” to which the Almighty promises “the reward of inheritance.”—H. Melvill.
Unspotted from the World.—As men and women grow older they change. Of all the changes that they undergo those of their moral natures are the most painful to watch. The boy changes into the man, and there is something lost which never seems to come back again. Presently his life no longer sounds with a perfectly clear ring, or shines with a perfectly white lustre. He is no longer unspotted. When a grown man sees this, he is sure that the change has come somehow from the boy having grown up to manhood in the midst of his fellow-men. The manhood has had to grow here in this great universal mass of things, this total of many various influences which we call “the world.” Home, school, business, society, politics, human life in general in all its various activities—out of this have come the evil forces that have changed and soiled this life. He has walked through mire, and the filth has gathered on his skirts. We have all been “spotted by the world.” The worst thing about all this staining power of the world is the way in which we come to think of it as inevitable. We practically believe that no man can keep himself unspotted. There is a worse thing than this. When a man comes not merely to tolerate but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him. In view of all this we come to our religion. See how intolerant religion is. She starts with what men have declared to be impossible. She refuses to bring down her standards. She insists that men must come up to her. No man is thoroughly religious, she declares, unless he goes through this world untainted, as the sunbeam goes through the mist. Christianity could not sustain itself in its great claim to be from God unless it took this high and God-like ground—that whoever named the name of Christ must depart from all iniquity, We go for our assurance to the first assertion of the real Christianity in the life of Jesus. That life was meant to be the pattern of the lives of all of those who called themselves His followers. If He walked through the same muddy streets of sordid care, and penetrated the same murky atmosphere of passion that we have to go through, and thence came out pure and unspotted from the world, then He is really God manifest in the flesh. Filling ourselves, then, with this idea, that the spotlessness of the Saviour’s life is the pattern of the spotless life to which we must aspire, study that life.
1. The first thing that strikes us about it is its positiveness. Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. He did not spend His life in trying not to do wrong. He was too full of the earnest love and longing to do right—to do His Father’s will. Many of our attempts at purity fail by their negativeness. All merely negative purity has something of the taint of the impurity that it resists. Morality is apt to be conceived as negative. Religion is by its very nature positive. Religion is higher than morality, as manly virtue is nobler than childlike innocence. But is any such purity as Christ’s, so positive, so strong, possible for us? Christianity is a religion of the supernatural, and, to any one who is thoroughly in its power, it must bring the presence of a live super-naturalism, and make that the atmosphere of his life. Make the Incarnation the one pervading power of a man’s life. A deep, living sense of God is the true vitality of a human soul which quenches the poisonous fires of corruption. This, however, is not enough; Christ must come nearer to the soul than this before it can really by Him “escape the corruption that is in the world.” There must be the personal relation between the soul and its Saviour. We must grasp the bewildering thought of a personal love for our single souls. The soul gives itself to Christ, and is its own no longer. He feels now with Christ’s feeling, and corruption drops away from him as it drops away from Christ. He walks unharmed, because he walks in this new sense of consecration. That is the perfect ransom of a soul. “When I am so thankful to Christ for all He suffered in my behalf that I give up my life to Him to show Him how I love Him, and by my dedication to Him am saved from the world’s low slaveries and stains—then, it seems to me, my heaven is begun, its security and peace I have already entered. I am already safe within its sheltering walls, and all my happy, restful life takes up already its eternal psalm. Already I have ‘washed my robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ ” It is by a Christ-like dedication to the world that Christ really saves us from the world. They say the doctors and the nurses are the least likely to catch the epidemic. If you have a friend who is dishonest or impure, the surest way to save yourself from him is to try to save him. What was it that saved Jesus from the infection of the world? Was it not the same divinity which made Him the Saviour of the world? It is the ineffable union of Christ with the sinner that most bears witness to Christ’s sinlessness. We may be saved from the wickedness of the world by our pity for it. We shall be far from its contagion the closer that we come to its needs. We shall be as pure as the angels the more completely we give ourselves up to the ministering angel’s work. This is the true positiveness of the Christian’s purity, the real safety of the loving and labouring life.—Phillips Brooks.
Sincere Religion will stand Testing.—Vain religion is contrasted with pure and undefiled religion. Pure, or clear through. Undefiled, or unstained with self-seeking. Our supreme danger in the religious life is willingly cherishing mixed motives. “Their heart is divided.” There is praise of God and praise of self. “They feared the Lord, and served other gods.” Illustrate by the architect who built a temple, and put the king’s name on the plaster that would weather off, and carved his own name deep in the stone underneath. If our religion is sincere and simple, it will stand testing. Who puts the test? God, even the Father. God, the heart-searcher. God, the Father, who is the severest of heart-searchers. Nothing searches like love.
I. God, testing our religion, expects to find us “unspotted from the world.”—Illustrate from the early Church. Christians were then set in close daily contact with heathenism, which tended to degrade and corrupt all social life. But the distinction between the Church and the world can never be safely obliterated. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” But what is the distinction between these two? The world is the self-pleasing sphere; the Church is the God-pleasing sphere. But here is our practical difficulty—We all come into personal religion as men and women already “world-spotted” by our experiences. Nay, it is worse than that—with a strange tendency to take world-spots. But provision is made for keeping us. Christ is our hedge. The Holy Spirit is a gracious defensive power within us. But God’s grace in us must be responded to by all due keeping of ourselves. We need not willingly go where there is dirt. We can keep our clothes tight about us, and high up, if we must be where there is dirt. So many of the stains on our garments need not have been there. The mystery we have to find out is—How was it that Christ’s garments would not take stains?
II. God, even the Father, testing our religion, expects to find us visiting the fatherless and the widow.—The specific cases are put as types of practical religion. They are valuable and important as signs in themselves. They are more so regarded as types. Illustrate—We keep the household crockery clean, not for show, but for use. We must keep ourselves clean for service. Learn what Christian service is from Christ. Where did He find spheres? He was always doing something for somebody. That is practical religion. Not profession, not feeling, not ritual, though these are good enough in their places; but the inward goodness of the pure heart, and the outward goodness of a life of charity.
Morality the Ceremonial of Christianity.—The outwardservice of ancient religion, the rites, ceremonies, and ceremonial, vestments of the old law, had morality for their end. They were the letter of which morality was the spirit, the enigma of which morality was the meaning. But morality itself is the service and ceremonial (cultus exterior, θρησκεία) of the Christian religion.—Coleridge.
The Double Sphere of Practical Religion.—Doing in two spheres properly follows upon religious instruction.
1. Doing in the sphere of personal culture.
2. Doing in the sphere of kindly and self-denying service to others.
Undefiled Religion.—
1. That in which is no trace of insincerity.
2. That in which there is no strand of self-seeking. God in our religion keeps it sweet. Self in our religion tends to make it foul.
Three Interests of Religion.—Religion in its rise interests us about ourselves; in its progress, about our fellow-creatures; in its highest stage, about the honour of God.—Fausset.
Personal Purity and Active Charity.—These two things here mentioned (visiting the fatherless, etc.) are not the sum-total of true religion. They are but samples of the stock. Here, as elsewhere in the Scriptures, a part or parts is put for the whole. It is as if I described a living man by saying that he breathes. But he does many things else. He sees and hears, he walks and talks, he thirsts and hungers, and a thousand things besides. Still, unless he breathes, he is not alive, but dead; and dead is the religion which does not aim at these two things—personal purity and active charity; in other words, doing good and being good.—Guthrie.
Religion in its Visible Form.—Not piety, but the externals of religion. Θρησκεία only means religion in that sense in which we apply the word to any form or system of worship. Thus we might speak of the whole Mosaic ritual and ceremonial as the Jewish religion. It refers to the outward and visible forms in which religion embodies itself, not to the inner life of religion as it exists in the soul. What the apostle here means then is—The outward form and ritual in which your Christian life is to be manifested purely and acceptably to God does not consist in any liturgical system, but in visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and in keeping yourselves unspotted from the world. This is a lesson of as much importance to the ritualists of this day as for those of old, whilst attention to the precise, I might almost say “technical,” meaning of the word translated “religion” guards it from the perversion of the legalist and the Pharisee. A holy and charitable life has taken the place under the new dispensation which, under the old, was held by sacrifices, ablutions, etc. Precisely the same idea is conveyed in Romans 12:1 and Hebrews 13:15.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
James 1:26. Bridling the Tongue.
I. What is the general vice or fault here referred to, or what disposition in man is supposed in moral reflections and precepts concerning bridling the tongue? The fault referred to is not malice, but talkativeness, a disposition to be talking. This disposition is a grave matter, because it is so difficult to hold in restraint. It does not necessarily involve slander, perjury, or even ambitious vanity; but it is the occasion of numberless ills and evils and vexations of life.
II. When may it be said of any one, that he has a due government over himself in this respect?—The due and proper use of any natural faculty or power is to be judged of by the end or design for which it was given us. What then is the design of the gift of speech? Not only was it to meet necessary occasions, but also to minister enjoyment and satisfaction. A secondary use of speech is to please, and to be entertaining to each other in conversation. As the end and use, so likewise the abuse of speech, relates to the one or other of these, either to business or to conversation. Three things may be given as cautions against mistakes in conversation:
1. Silence;
2. Talking of indifferent things;
3. Speaking good or evil of others. If people would observe the obvious occasions of silence; if they would subdue the inclination to tale-bearing, and that eager desire to engage attention, which is an original disease in some minds, they would be in little danger of offending with their tongue, and would, in a moral and religious sense, have due government over it.—Bishop Butler.
James 1:27. Blight on Sickly Plants.—When blight or mildew comes to a garden, the plants that suffer first and most are those which have been badly cared for, and are, in consequence, weak and sickly. It is not often that hardy and vigorous plants are attacked and injured. If we fail to use the means which are needful for sustaining our souls in spiritual health and soundness, we shall be very liable to the blighting influence of evil. It is only by being careful to maintain a vigorous spiritual life, that we can hope to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world.”—B. Wilkinson.
Sympathy with Widows.—One of the late Dr. Spencer’s parishioners, in Brooklyn, New York, met him hurriedly urging his way down the street, one day; his lip was set, and there was something strange in that grey eye. “How are you to-day, doctor?” he said pleasantly. He waked as from a dream, and replied, soberly, “I am mad!” It was a new word for a mild, true-hearted Christian; but he waited, and with a deep earnest voice went on: “I found a widow standing by her goods thrown in the street; she could not pay the month’s rent; the landlord turned her out, and one of her children is going to die; and that man is a member of the Church! I told her to take her things back again. I am on my way to see him.”